This has nothing to do with any theory of Meritt's. He cites the evidence as being certain that the Archon calendar only had twelve months in 265/4 (he uses an asterisk in his table of intercalations to show that the evidence is certain in this instance). The Lunar calendar will have followed the Metonic cycle in this case (it would be extremely rare for actual lunar observations not to follow the Metonic rules). Anyway I have looked at the lunar eclipses in 265/4 and there were definitely 13 New Moons between the two summer solstices, so there is no real doubt that the Lunar calendar had 13-months in that year. Therefore it fell a month behind the Archon calendar and that situation persisted for a year. There are almost certainly other instances of this due to the irregularity of the intercalary months in the archon calendar (they missed some and added others). The Lunar calendar was observational and could not be irregular.agesilaos wrote:Sorry, see your point now.(DOH)
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Athens operated according to the Metonic cycle, that is an invention of Merrit and Dinsmoor (not the metonic cycle itself, of course just its use in Athens) to support their fixed festival calendar theory; it seems that there were no rules for intercalation at Athens, although it must have happened; the intercalary months we have evidence for move all over the calendar. Nor is there a 'kata theon' dating for 264 the earliest being 196, so Merrit it working purely on his own discredited theory. Pritchett and Neueberger's more sensible (IMHO) opinions are neatly summarised here
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/pr ... _81_1_2374
Best wishes,
Andrew